There is a global TD-LTE initiative (GTI) steering committee and local WiMAX operator Packet One (P1), now will have a hand in making decisions about 4G TD-LTE technology global movement. GTI was founded by leading mobile network operators in February 2011, and aims to meet growing demand for broadband and explore the various opportunities across industry and public segments. Now, P1 joins its five founding members, the likes of China Mobile, United States’ Clearwire, Bharti Airtel from India, Japan’s Softbank, and UK-headquartered Vodafone.
P1 CEO, Michael Lai explained why they are on the steering commitee, “P1 is the first in Southeast Asia to deploy 4G and also proven with strong track record in 4G deployment with capable leadership since 2008. Apart from that, P1 also provided a clear transition roadmap from 4G WiMAX to LTE.”
He shared that P1’s role includes supporting the GTI mission that focuses on creating value for stakeholders across the TD-LTE ecosystem to promote fast development. They also have the responsibility of promoting the convergence of TD-LTE and FD-LTE modes; this would bring economies of scale as well as sharing ecosystem with other TD-LTE technology like eXtended Global Platform (XGP) to establish a growth-focused business environment. “The initiative aims to bring together leading industry partners to steer the TD-LTE ecosystem as a major standard in mobile broadband technology and drive the development of next generation mobile broadband networks,” said Lai.
On top of that, P1 also actively takes part in global conferences to advocate TD-LTE adoption.
The advantage
Lai described LTE as essentially being the older big brother of WiMAX – faster, more capacity, larger cell size and compatible with existing standards. “It offers the highest data rates and shortest latency times.”
There are also two camps of LTE, namely Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) and Frequency Division Long Term Evolution (FD-LTE). The latter is mostly adopted by 3G incumbents due to the nature of existing spectrum, according to Lai. He added that GTI is formed with the vision of making TD-LTE a world standard and to ensure:
* technology evolution of TD-LTE where a clear roadmap is developed and to drive the development of next generation mobile broadband network
* strong support for TD-LTE ecosystem ranging from chip makers to network vendors and device makers
* economies of scale for TD-LTE devices and network
Lai also gave examples of China Mobile already rolling out a trial network of the technology to six Chinese cities, and also network vendors like Nokia Siemens and Huawei participating in similar trials. Ericsson have also recently won a AU$1 billion contract from Australia’s NBN Co. to roll out TD-LTE to rural households.
The CEO concluded, “For us, technology advancement is not an option; it is a necessity especially in a
highly competitive environment such as Malaysia. We see TD-LTE as our next step in the evolution of 4G technology.
The WiMAX operator also has base stations on standby with software which will upgrade it from WiMAX to also supporting TD-LTE in just 30 minutes. Already half of P1’s total base stations are waiting for spectrum to be allocated and LTE service to be commercially deployed finally.
Even parent company Green Packet is ready to commercially launch a device ecosystem by 2013.
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Green Packet’s LTE devices roadmap |
